BBMV, a joint venture comprising Balfour Beatty, BeMo Tunnelling, Morgan Sindall and VINCI Construction Grands Projets, which is delivering two sections of the £15bn Crossrail project, has reached a major milestone in the construction of the new Crossrail Whitechapel station, completing the spray concrete lining (SCL) of the two tunnels that will form the space occupied by the new station platforms.
The completion of the SCL has allowed colleagues at Dragados Sisk joint venture to move two tunneling machines through the station to commence the final tunneling push underneath London’s East End towards Liverpool Street and Farringdon stations.
Once the tunneling machines have completely passed through the station the team will complete secondary lining works for handover to its sister project for platform construction.
The total funding available to deliver Crossrail is £14.8bn. The Crossrail route will pass through 40 stations and run more than 100km from Reading and Heathrow in the west, through new twin-bore 21 km (13 miles) tunnels below central London to Shenfield and Abbey Wood in the east.
Crossrail is being delivered by Crossrail Limited (CRL). CRL is a wholly owned subsidiary of Transport for London. Crossrail is jointly sponsored by the Department for Transport and Transport for London.
BBMV Crossrail is a joint venture between four of the world's leading construction companies: Balfour Beatty, ALPINE, Morgan Sindall, and VINCI Construction Grands Projets, formed for the construction of the £250m C510 Whitechapel and Liverpool Street Station Tunnels contract and the C512 £110m Whitechapel station construction and fit out.
The partners of the joint venture have worked together before on some of the UK's highest profile projects, including the Heathrow Terminal 5 tunnels. Strength is brought to the partnership through BBMV's specialist in-house businesses, including Bachy Soletanche and Balfour Beatty Ground Engineering.